Not surprisingly, ME has almost the exact same issues as here, specially WRT new arrivals (see 'moving to maine' threads) and the impact on natives.

Still, my spouse's job is in VT, all our friends are in VT, I close my eyes and see my stomping grounds in VT; and, should I live long enough, hope to have a small bug-out camp somewhere in the woods/forests that I know like the back of my hand, in VT.

My rants are done. Someone else can ring the wake-up bell.

> I'm afraid for what we have become and where we seem to be going.

I hear ya! The sentiment behind my 'rants' hoping to add to the collective wake-up call. I'm going back to being comfortably numb now :)

Being of a 2-party system where one is purely a controlled opposition, trying for elected office, even at Statewide levels, is pointless in and of itself.

Being a grey state and good-bye'ing boomers might give VT a running head start, but the push has to be more organized I think. Almost how the R's are trying to corner school boards and the edu market.

Progressive and Green both succumbed to a liberalism thats gone neo and had helped take us to this sickened state. Hearing the word 'socialist' drummed into maga ears with few besides Bernie to try and explain it make it a poison pill.

Let's go with Leftists! So far left it looks like right to sane conservatives that aren't caught up with praising Jesus :)

It's a banner that orgs need to adopt maybe? A manifesto or mantra? "Enough is Enough, Stop the Take!"

I've been doing this shit since the 60's riots and the wind is still blowin' that piss my way. But, for me, here's where it changed:

All the 'anti-queer' threats of violence to performers and shows, all the threats of violence to pro-abortion/choice; in the street, in their face.

Vermont has been spared a lot of that form of hate, but figuring out how to best deal with it is a good lesson. When and how best to confront hate/threats and who will stand.

r/socialistRA says can't advocate direct action (LLC) but aims me to the JBGC (John Brown Gun Club), the one org willing to confront (sometimes unarmed) these nazis if asked/requested or on-the-spot if needed.

One small(ish) group in the State that can mobilize w/a text and be available to rally assistance. Count me in.

> Force them out of the space.

take the cause to where 'they' play and recreate. The exclusive backwoods CC's and yacht clubs; nobody is safe until all are safe ... but I digress.

thanks for the kind reassurance :) Trump could prove to the camels' nose in an otherwise Koch brothers / America First / Freedumb Foundation world !

At that point I'll be jiggy with collapse and relaxed AF on hard cider and maple edibles :)

Thanks for the advice; its getting late and I'm tired.

Be well yourself, bub!

My sincere apologies! Really. I thought the context was alluding to me not Rama or r/vermontpolitics. Aside, I was surprised to see a lot in your history that aligns w/me, for real. Including shall not be... and life along 22A (friends in Poultney).

So, yea, it was kinda an asshole retort. And yea, I am prepared to fight (w/words) on this matter, considering how important I feel it is.

Again, forgive my impertinence

Peace Out, pard!

Well, who dat? Not me - I'm not preaching, just spilling facts that you can dispute if you care to; and not be poorly treated or distained for doing so.

Just make your case instead of snark from a barely 1month old account w/no Karma - see I can do that too! But I honestly won't judge based on your (brief) post history w/trucks, 2A, or funny memes :)

Sometimes tweets work fine. Other times, late at night, pondering how we got to this sorry reality, where the future is taking us, opens up the braingates for words to spill.

Also, FWIW, most people's loop is eat,commute,work,commute,eat, tv, sleep... repeat.

Being retired gives me too much idle time now that this boomer's made way for the next gen to take my place. :)

Thanks for the history, I had no idea what that sub was about but the exclusionary, preaching to the choir tone, doesn't surprise me.

My rants aren't so much to find agreement as to serve a discourse where facts and best ideas hopefully prevail

> EASING regulations?

Ok, first thanks for your reply. Next, my federal POV is dead in the water; it'll no nowhere; despite my disagreeing with your outcomes.

Easing regulations is what has lead to regulatory capture, giving corporations personhood and no responsibilities. Creating the revolving door, where people stay in gov just long enough to get lucrative lobby jobs; and then, get paid to re-enter politics; Influence peddlers taking key congressional jobs.

The so-called reverse revolving door, in which lobbyists for highly regulated interest groups temporarily take jobs in government with influence or oversight over policy impacting their former employers

To the point where many corporations with a stake in government policy now write the incentives into employment contracts. Where Banks and defense contractors extend special bonuses as a reward for executives to leave and enter government.

> getting rid of the electoral college

Popular vote, free of fixing/gerrymandering etc... is direct democracy; like it or not. Choosing a 'college' to do that for us may have had its place, but no longer. Because we cannot trust either them or the process.

> many of [your points] just perpetuate an image of a dystopian future. We BARELY live in a capitalistic society. What we currently live under is more closely related to corporatism.

And going even further in that direction unless we collectively act to stop it.

> both parties agree/consent without the need for approval from a third party. What is wrong with that?

Nothing, that's the marketplace in an ideal world; which is not where we are. Corporatism is, by definition, predatory; one's gain is another's loss. It's ruthless enough w/out corruption, but add that spice and you end up with what we have now: a kakistocracy serving kleptocrats.

> to rebuild us back to glory and wealth...

Allow that our 'glory-n-wealth', in the 0sum game has come with buckets of bloodshed that made an aristocracy filthy rich in a land that supposedly shed itself of a monarch. Its a myth told by the victors, but more important, as they've drained the well there is no going back. Only bleeding more blood from the stone that was the middle-class who once benefited by being trickled-down upon.

You may not agree on the speed in which collapse is coming, but 'objects in the rearview are closer than they seem' is apropos. Unless something is created (State-wide at least) to claw back our ideals, working-class ideals, caring for the least ideals, ... they'll be no different from the vanishing wildlife and bees.

Yea, that sub be ded, jim :)

Which I've been obviously making more than clear.

Thought the URL's are factually accurate; again IMO.

So, Is that all ya got? Or are you embarrassed to share your own?

/r/VermontPolitics

The moderators of r/vermontpolitics have set this community to private. Only approved members can view and take part in its discussions.

is a place for news and discussion about politics in the Green Mountain State, with more politics than /r/Vermont and more Vermont than /r/politics.

Lamoille river, between #15 and Hogback

thanks for that! VT - the state of nooks and crannies; a good place to be gored :)

Appreciate your kind words!

I don't know if its any different now than back in the 90's, but there is/was some degree of entrenchment at work.

In the case of Ag, it was those in position at the Farm Bureau, Coop extension and the State, whose focus was so narrow that they could not think outside the box. Granted, their constituency was probably the most anti-change, 'aint broke, don't fix' group to walk/work the earth. Understandably so, considering how little is actually in their perview of control.

Just pressing for things like crop rotation, low-till no-till, ... was a herculean task! So, advocates could only really push for what their audience was ready to hear.

These days, minds are much more open I suspect.

Can't speak to whether 'turning the other cheek' or just ranting is the only thing that's been done, or not. I do know that there's no lack of advocates trying to effect positive change(s), but its not possible to escape undeniable truths.

One being that there aren't too many solutions to fundamentally rural problems; which about 3/4's of the State is. Fortunately, our rural parts benefit (trickle-down) from tourism in ways that rural villes and hamlets in places from OH to VA .... don't. Those places now look like ghost towns.

We are a tourist state that attracts 30M people from Boston to Baltimore. Sure, we have a few industries, but even relaxing regs would not make Vermont competitive with elsewhere. We need industry that we can build from the ground up.

We do K-12 OK, but >50% kids don't stay past HS; because growing up rural can be boring and there's too little opportunity. So our edu taxes make places elsewhere more literate. We're graying out, and the new blood replacing it is bringing in new values and new money; making life even more expensive.

I don't have any solutions, but know any proposed will be a tough pill to swallow and invite the inevitable backlash, no different than what's happening with the VSC/VSU transition.

What I do know, for sure, is that fixing wealth inequality, employer tied for-profit healthcare, .... the big killers of our social safety net .... would go a long way to remedying many of the issues we're facing.

and thanks for the convo! I can't speak to southern VT, or parts below #15 even FTM; despite having traipsed across the State to the point of knowing it blindfolded.

Farming and forestry is what makes VT special, what accounts for its pastoral beauty. VT does grass very well. Sadly the industries that use it are under stress, specially dairy; which started feeling the strain in late 80's early 90's with ops moving first to western NY, then later (with advent of reverse osmosis) to the southwest. Trying to compete with economies of scale elsewhere is a losing proposition.

Going organic, niche specialty dairy products, and the like helps to some degree but can't stem the trend of consolidation, which further erodes the prospect of more farmers via succession.

Thing is, if normal working class folk made a livable wage they could afford to buy produce/meat at those farmers' markets usually reserved for better off tourists and 2nd home owners. They could more directly support their neighbors; though I know that like me, many probably get their whole milk, eggs, beef even, from their neighbors operation.

But the elephant in the room is how little food security there is in Vermont despite being fertile and abundant. Not too different from how many kids would qualify as 1st gen to go to college.

They/it has not been a top priority, despite the bounty of advocates calling it out.

> I tell them to imagine it as a statewide HOA.

Spitballing here, but I'd say 80% of VT is rural hamlets and villes. So lets talk that: valleys with properties usually very near the road built when some farmer sub'd their land and excluded the pastures behind said new homes. Or, properties up along some hillside or gore off dirt roads in the woods. OK?

Those places are akin to HOA's only due to the fact that they're run by the 'town fathers'; the click that collectively ignores everyone at town meeting day to preserve the status quo :)

> My house on 3.5 acres that is part of a neighborhood in rural VT subdivided in the 90s was rezoned to a 5 acre minimum several years ago.

My homestead was on 5ac, abutted by substantially larger tracts of land; either some farm or some woods logged or sugarbushed. I like the 5ac and think 3.5ac would feel too confining if I had neighbors. 5ac is about the min amount that offers real privacy and peace/quiet. I say this bec I have friends on smaller lots and they beef about noise/neighbors with too much regularity.

Just my .02 - Peace Out!

Many of the problems faced are not unique to VT, some (like graying and edu) are. Being a tourist State so close to the Tri-State corridor and 30M people is impactful too.

A lot of your assertions are correct. Many of these issues have persisted for a long time. Your anecdote regarding farmland may have merit, e.g. using 250 as a weapon. I also think that for as valuable as the VT Land Trust is, it needs more flexibility in addressing conservation vs succession issues. But the truth is that farming in VT is in peril. If not for lack of interest then for poor economy of scale. Beef, organic dairy, hemp, and the like have promise, but its still a threadbare life keeping the machines running.

Sure, its important to attract industries to work-centers like ChitCo, but outside of the 45-60minute commute, the rural problems are still going to be there regardless. I had hope for Newport, but that sure got F'd up. Maybe Hardwick can become a success story (a la Pete's greens and the like).

I just don't thing Big Business should be the first goto to find a fix to small State problems.

I'm not disputing the facts at all; they speak for themselves in being painfully obvious. I'm disputing the proposed fixes coming from a very unqualified source.

Vermont is a State of mind; full of nooks and crannies!

Life in a developed area can get old (culture-wise) in a decade or less; so you head up to Montreal. Life in the rural hinter parts is either savoring the peace-n-quiet of pastoral privacy, or letting the quiet slowly make you crazy with solitude and isolation.

Being rural without the benefits of extended network or family contributes to that. A church or two, the school, the general store; that's what ya got for social if not for tail-gate beers at the end of some dirt road leading into the woods; maybe near a swimming hole.

Paradise!

> My father, and most of my 8 uncles, all left the state for jobs in their 20s. None of them wanted to stay on the dairy farm. "Too much work for too little money".

Thanks for your reply! I did Ag advocacy for about a decade (90's), mostly focused on feed costs, cull prices, finding labor, crop rotation, and a good chunk on succession and its prospects. in '99 I proposed doing a survey called 2020 - prospects of farming. Its a lot more than counting wheels:) I even suggested the Land Trust make allowances/exceptions to permit a co-housing plan in which those who farmed it lived rent-free, as it were, to address the succession issue. Not that it was a good idea, per say, so much as trying to think outside the box.

Kids leave the State since forever and its been a minute that your education taxes aren't making elsewhere more literate :) Fact is, for the rural parts, its boring AF; specially if not in a clique. We've done shit for supporting college because of it; tourism and second homes pays the bills (mostly) and keeps the trades in decent pay, so and raising (non-native) taxes is a lead balloon.

So instead we adapt to the new realities, which is what VSU is trying to do now due to lowering enrollments and higher costs. They're going Univ of Phoenix - Vermont Edition. Re-purposing libraries because mostly everyone doesn't go there for books. Cutting back sports because even the NCAA class is 3rd tier, few poor or minority students are going to turn pro and transpo costs alone are sky-high. VT doesn't need sports more than academic excellence, nor should it have to recruit from poor inner cities to boost enrollment. You'd be gobsmacked to know how many NVU students are 1st generation to get past HS.

Bet $5 will get you $8 closing Johnson w/in 3-5 years if not sooner. I don't envy those calling the shots, this sub is full of backlash and well-deserved calls for transparency. I know this bec wife is in academic support and I feel people's pain over uncertainty; but its the right (hard) call.

Encouraging teleworkers and knowledgeworkers is the right call, there should always be a livelihood in trades, in logging, in beef and hemp and like, if not in dairy. Dairy consolidation aside, my sis works an organic outfit (100ish head) near Poultney and they are getting by OK, but the parents are still in charge.

So, please don't think I'm complaining more than calling it as I see it. Most all commute 1hr to a job, outside of ChitCo the State is rural AF, Glover is no worse off for the hippies and Peter's circus, nor is MontP for the few still alive:)

Peace Out, bub!

I'm a newcomer to Maine; and don't for a minute think of the irony when I'm posting on r/Maine; despite having the same sentiment vis-a-vis the stressors being faced.

I moved from (near eden) to ME a year ago. Partly because of costs, partly because I've gotten to old to buck/split wood and care for maintaining the homestead, partly to get out of a mortgage, mostly because said homestead is a 2-person operation that were something to happen 1 person couldn't handle the workload.

I would have stayed in VT were it not for insane RE prices, (even a house lot to throw up a tiny house), so after nearly 40 years, spouse-n-me decided to try a change. Maine (the ocean, the north woods) was a good choice, but despite visiting friends here regularly, I miss the greens that I know like the palm of my hand :)

Oh joy, a newcomer arrives in 2019 and proceeds to write a tome (on their substack) describing a place they barely understand, from an ivory tower academia burg; thinking they got a handle on what drives folk both to and from this place they've just landed in.

And the conclusion? More libertarianism! You're painful ignorance if makes it obvious that don't know rural, don't know surviving off the land, or what makes Vermont tick. You assert hippy infestation and conservation mated to stubborn agriculture resistance to change is bad blood in need of a transfusion.

The issues being faced are little different than those in other States, specially all of northern New England. Covid and 2020 changed everything; making what's bad worse. Income inequity has made things worse. Corruption's made things worse. Crappy for-profit healthcare making many 1 serious emergency away from bankruptcy, paying our dentist's kids college tuition w/our cavities for lack of good insurance...

But no, you look to Jim Douglas as someone worth quoting; that's a laugh (at your expense).

The reason people (like you?) move here is because conservation is what has kept billboards from dotting the pastoral landscape. Communalism is what gives everyone a voice; even if it gets ignored by the 'town fathers'. Vermonters are kind, but not nice. Spend a year around Enosburg or the hamlets of the mountains, then tell us what you've learned; instead of acting like you're Warren telling the people of Roxbury what their problems are. What do you know about agriculture; farming and forestry, the working landscape? What do you know about wearing many hats to pay the bills?

You favor the same 'open for business' modal that's left other places with toxic waste dumps left to clean at the taxpayer's expense?

IMO you should keep your opinions to yourself and let the Vermonters who've been here for decades and know its workings intimately hash out fixing its problems. Instead of trying to make it look like where ever TF you came from.